Breakdown

The joy of socks.

Last weekend during a shopping-induced frenzy, untitledhusband and I dropped $473 at the mall. We don’t know how it happened. We went there to buy me a few new bras. My old ones have gotten a bit big, and were making my girls looking less like melons and more like two zucchinis. I also got some running shoes, workout clothes and socks, which turned out to be the hardest decision of the day.

So I walk into Lady Footlocker and drop the bomb. “I’m going to start running, so I need some running shoes and socks.” It can’t be everday that a girl of my size walks in with this kind of optimism, but the sales clerk held it together regardless. Once she recovered, she hooked me up with the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn outside of my Crocs, which made me question the cartel responsible for withholding these babies from the general non-exercising population. Must one run (or even leave the couch for that matter) to experience such comfort? Blasphemy.

After overcoming the orgasm induced by said shoes, I headed towards the large barrel filled with white athletic socks. “Low-rise or mid-rise?” she asked. I must’ve stood there for five minutes, trying to decide. This was a conundrum, for I am from the generation that has seen every sock trend imaginable. I have clear memories of wearing purple and gold knee-shooters while playing basketball in junior high. Somewhere between then and high school, socks became scrunched (all the better to showcase those pegged jeans). Now, it seems we have the invisi-sock. Unless there is a market for hosiery that only covers ones toenails, there is nowhere to go but up.

This revelation has me awaiting the return of thigh-highs — socks that would make even the thinnest of legs look like paunchy, cottony Greek columns. Socks that could double as Wilt Chamberlin’s sleeping bag. They would protect my inner thighs from the inevitable chafe of my early morning spins on the elliptical. I would gladly rock the look of the fat chick from Meatballs if it meant I could forego the Gold Bond for just one summer. But being an overweight 36 year-old from the Midwest, I fear my vision might be misinterpreted as high-functioning autism or worse yet, fashion ignorance.

So until the sock apocalypse arrives, it looks like I will be wearing the shorties. Every other part of my body is well-covered, but my ankles are out there, naked and free, spotlighting vein patterns that only moms and injured gymnasts have. I have one body part free from jiggle and stretch marks, and by god, I ought to flaunt it.